Archaeologists using drones uncover 4,000-year-old fish-trapping canals made by ancient Mayan predecessors

Archaeologists, with the assistance of drones and Google Earth imagery, person discovered 4,000-year-old canals successful Belize that were erstwhile utilized by the predecessors of the past Mayans to drawback freshwater fish. 

"The aerial imagery was important to place this truly distinctive signifier of zigzag linear canals" survey co-author Eleanor Harrison-Buck of the University of New Hampshire said of the pre-Christopher Columbus discovery. 

The fish-trapping canals, built astir 2000 BCE, continued to beryllium utilized by their Mayan descendants until astir 200 CE. 

SCIENTISTS STUDY ‘VERY RARE’ FROZEN REMAINS OF 35,000-YEAR-OLD SABER-TOOTHED CUB

Altar Q that depicts 16 kings successful the dynastic succession of the metropolis is seen wrong the archeological tract of Copan, successful Copan Ruinas, Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)

"This is the earliest large-scale Archaic fish-trapping installation recorded successful past Mesoamerica," the survey authors wrote successful Science Advances, adding that "such landscape-scale intensification whitethorn person been a effect to semipermanent clime disturbance recorded betwixt 2200 and 1900 BCE." 

The canals apt progressive "barbed spearpoints" that were recovered adjacent that would person been utilized to spear fish, survey co-author Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont.

Researchers excavate sediment successful 2019 that volition beryllium sequenced to assistance them day the grounds of a large-scale pre-Columbian fish-trapping installation successful Belize. (Belize River East Archaeology task via AP)

The spearpoints were tied to sticks on the canals, the probe squad believes. 

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"It’s truly absorbing to spot specified large-scale modifications of the scenery truthful aboriginal — it shows radical were already gathering things," University of Pittsburgh archaeologist Claire Ebert, told the Associated Press of the semi-nomadic radical who built the canals. Ebert was not progressive successful the study. 

Stela M and the Hieroglyphic Stairway are seen wrong the archeological tract of Copan, successful Copan Ruinas, Honduras. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)

Ebert added that the Mayan civilization is amended studied by archaeologists due to the fact that of its galore ruins, similar Chichen Itza. 

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The Mayans besides developed analyzable systems of writing, mathematics and astronomy.